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T. C. Bowen
Teresa Catherine Bowen (1928 - 2013) was a Lasterian author, primarily known for her famed and innovative epic fantasy saga The Shanadar Cycle. Publishing her first novel in 1967, in the late 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, Bowen became the premiere voice of what came to be seen as the second generation of high fantasy, transforming the genre through her incorporation of more complex narrative structure and a focus on themes involving women, personal trauma, uncertainty, and the nature of reality. She published more than thirty novels, and is the most decorated fantasy author ever, winning nine World Fantasy Awards, twelve Harrion Awards, and becoming the only fantasy author to win the Lanmore Prize for lifetime literary achievement. Career Born in rural Marland, Bowen studied English literature and history at the University of Inns, and initially went into publishing, before joining a small circle of literary speculative fiction authors in Inns in the late 1950s and 1960s. After publishing a series of short stories, she published her first novel, Winter Gods, in 1967, to positive reviews but low sales. Deciding to pivot to high fantasy, she began planning an epic fantasy cycle, and published The Sword of Dawn ''in 1975. Sales of this book were significantly higher, and Bowen was able to switch publishers to Anvira, the largest science fiction and fantasy publishing company in Lasterus, for the series' second installment, ''Shadowlands, in 1977. Significantly longer and more ambitious than her first novel, Shadowlands ''topped the ''Caristopolitan's bestseller list and began to attract a large fanbase around her series. Additionally, the novel's cliffhanger ending attracted an immense amount of anticipation for the third installment. Bowen took five years to write the third novel, The Queen of Shanadar, during which time she began to dramatically expand her ambitions and plan the rest of the series. Immediately controversial, the novel almost entirely abandoned the previous novels' plot threads and instead focused on the life of the series' absent antagonist, Queen Navira, fully expanding and humanizing her and explaining her murder of her former husband, the King of Shandar. In the process, the novel focuses on themes of womanhood in an oppressive and patriarchal society, patterns of intergenerational trauma, mental instability, depression, and the distinction between effective and honorable rule. It also follows a nonlinear trajectory, both beginning and ending with Navira's death, and introducing her escaped daughter, the Princess Alira, as a principle protagonist of the series. Many fans immediately rebelled against the book, furious both that it sudden recast the antagonist and protagonist, abandoned the traditional fantasy arc of the first two novels, and focused on feminist and literary themes. However, critical reviews were enormously positive, with several notable book critics declaring it a rebirth of the fantasy genre, and it soon generated immense sales and a renewed interest in T. C. Bowen, who until that point had remained mysterious and largely not discussed her gender, leaving many more casual fans thinking that she was in fact a man. In the years since, The Queen of Shanadar ''has been rated by several critics and publications as the greatest fantasy novel of all time, and won every possible award in science fiction and fantasy for 1982. After ''The Queen of Shanadar, Bowen began to split the series into a series of separate plot threads, releasing two books in 1984, The Seer ''and ''The Red Crown, focusing on separate characters. The Seer, centered around Princess Alira, was also widely considered innovative and literary, centering around Alira's quest for the delusional blind oracle Halcyra, who is revealed to be a fraud, and questions the notions of future, destiny, and objective cosmic truth present in other fantasy novels. At the same time, The Red Crown, and its successor novel Namantha ''in 1986, focused on more traditional fantasy themes. From that point on, as Bowen's universe expanded, she began to develop individual series within the Cycle with distinct voices and themes, and continued to release books prolifically throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, reaching her most prolific period between 1992 and 1998, during which time she released ten novels, more than one a year. She began to slow slightly in the 2000s, leading some to grow concerned that she would die without finishing the series. The ''Shanadar Cycle's final novel, The Return of the Queen, was released in 2010, after which point Bowen announced her retirement from writing; she would soon reveal that she had already been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and she would die three years later. Its name a reference to the classic fantasy novel The Return of the King from 1946, The Return of the Queen ''was the series' longest novel at 924 pages, much of it written almost two decades earlier. While considered less innovative than ''The Queen of Shanadar ''or ''The Seer, it was widely acclaimed as a fitting ending to the series, staying true to Bowen's nature by beginning with what would have been the climactic battle, in which Alira returns to retake Shanadar, and then focuses its principle energy on the nature of benevolent rule and the consequences of years of war and turmoil on the kingdom and its individual characters. The next year, Bowen was awarded the Lanmore Prize, Lasterus's most prestigious literary award for lifetime achievement, making her the first fantasy author and only a handful of authors writing in so-called "genre fiction" to ever be awarded the prize. In its first week, the novel broke a number of sales records in Lasterus and around the world. In late 2012, only eight months before Bowen's death, the World Fantasy Magazine released a retrospective of 100 Years of Fantasy, naming Bowen as the greatest fantasy author of all time. Legacy Bowen donated much of her money, establishing the Bowen Fund at the University of Inns to provide scholarships for low-income women, primarily first-generation college students. She is memorialized with a statue outside of the Godfrey Library at the University, sitting on a bench scribbling in a notebook. In 2014, the T. C. Bowen Award for Literary Achievement in Speculative Fiction was established by the